Microstory 1967: Recognizing the Signs

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image AI software

Reese: You two set up the computers. Sasho, follow me. I need you for something. Grab that bag. No, not that one. Yes, that one. Sachs, you know which case to grab. *leaves*

Ophelia: What do you think they’re talking about up there?

Micro: Leonard knows. Don’t ya, Leonard?

Leonard: Not sure, but that was obviously a rifle case, so my guess is that they’re going to start teaching Sasho how to spot through a scope.

Ophelia: That makes sense.

Micro: You ever shot anyone in your universe, Leo? Can I call you Leo?

Leonard: Leo is fine, yeah. And yes, I have had to fire my weapon before.

Micro: One of your parolees?

Leonard: No, this was something else.

Ophelia: What did you mean, in your universe? Are you just referring to the world of law enforcement, or am I missing something?

Leonard: Uhh...

Micro: Oh, we’re not from this universe. Like, literally. I’m from Salmonverse, and I don’t think his has a name.

Ophelia: I was not aware of this.

Leonard: We didn’t tell anyone, Micro. We especially didn’t tell anyone about you, since the government already knows about me, and we can still protect you from them.

Micro: *shrugging* I don’t need to be protected. I can take care of myself. I don’t see what the big deal is. We came through Westfall, which is the least jarring way to travel. Now, if I were from Linseverse, then you would really have something to question, because then your hacker would be a talking dinosaur—

Ophelia: Is that real, or are you joking?

Leonard: She’s joking.

Micro: No, they’re real. Troodons evolved human-comparable intelligence after not being wiped out in an extinction level event, like what happened in our three respective versions of Earth. I’ve never been there, but it’s in the multiversal historical record.

Leonard: How much do you know about all this? Have you met the Superintendent?

Ophelia: Who’s the Superintendent?

Micro: *laughing* No. Ophelia, the Superintendent knows a lot about the bulkverse, because his spirit possesses psychic abilities that allow him to witness hyperdimensionally remote events, which he uses to write stories that no one reads. But he’s not the only one with such knowledge, Leonard. One day, you’ll meet others.

Leonard: You said that there was no hope that I would get back home.

Micro: I meant that there was no reason to fixate on the possibility. Don’t waste your time in pursuit of it. But once you fall into the secret underbelly of reality, it’s pretty much impossible to crawl out of it, and leave it behind. You’ll cross paths with someone new, and your conditions will change again. Ophelia will probably meet someone else too, if she hasn’t already, but she just won’t realize it. You’ll learn to recognize the signs.

Leonard: Hmm. Well, Ophelia, I hope you can keep a secret. This is sensitive stuff.

Ophelia: I promise to say nothing. As long as you teach me to recognize the signs too.

Microstory 1655: Linsetol Revealed

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Bulk traveler Joseph Jacobson came to me recently with a story about his adventures in Linsetolverse. He corrected some assumptions I made about the universe. It’s hard for me to get a good look at it from so far away, so it was nice to hear some details about the way they lived. He arrived, as he always does, as a human, shocking the Linsetol, who had never seen anything like him before. They knew it was best to keep this alien a secret, because they didn’t want to cause any confusion or panic. Joseph has the ability to navigate the bulkverse. That’s kind of his whole deal, so he could have made a deliberate effort to avoid showing up where his presence could negatively impact the development of the locals, but he usually just spins a metaphorical wheel, and takes his chances. He’s immortal, so he doesn’t concern himself with preparation, or vigilance. Anyway, things seemed to work out fine, and Joseph spent a few years there, learning about their culture. The language was the hardest part. As they were evolved from dinosaurs, the Linsetol have different vocal physiology, and produce sounds that are impossible for a human to replicate. With the aid of some engineers, Joseph actually managed to build a device that would translate his thoughts into a digital voice. It was not a linguistic translator, though. Joseph still had to understand the language in order for the device to not simply come out as English. He probably could have done it differently, but just didn’t feel the need. It worked both ways, allowing a Linsetol to speak in English, should the need ever arise, but this wasn’t something that Joseph needed of them. Once he was able to communicate with them effectively, he started learning their customs, because that was his favorite part about traveling. He was usually just going to a different version of Earth, so it wasn’t like the topography was particularly exciting. Understanding other people was the entire point.

As it turns out, the Linsetol are quite like humans. I was wrong about them being foreign. I think the language barrier was clouding my vision. They’re just as diverse, just as curious, and just as capable of doing terrible things. They measure time in the same way, though it’s different on prehistoric Earth, because the celestial bodies are moving differently. Shorter days, longer years. They developed fairly advanced technology, which I can see from my perspective, but they never got very far into space. Upon realizing how bad for their environment nonrenewable energy sources were, they outlawed them. They outlawed them across the globe, and pursued renewables like solar and wind power. Unfortunately, such things are not conducive to sending rockets up into space, so space exploration was pretty much off the table without fusion or antimatter rockets, which weren’t destined to be developed for many decades. They didn’t make it that far, because of their isolationistic habits. That’s one thing that I was right about. They were capable of demanding universal laws for the protection of their world, but they didn’t possess a spirit of cooperation, which stifled ingenuity, and slowed progress. They couldn’t last forever this way. They didn’t die out because they destroyed their planet, or succumbed to some pandemic. It was a population growth problem. Their drive to propagate the species was much lower than it is for humans. It was never zero, but it wasn’t enough, and over time, they just couldn’t maintain the species. Each generation was less inclined to bear children on the individual level, and that eventually caught up to them.

Microstory 1008: Bertha

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Hi, my name is Bertha, and I don’t want to be here right now. Oh, sorry about that, let me try again. Hi, I’m Bertha, and I don’t want to be here. Yeah, still sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to say something that doesn’t ring true. I have a huge problem with the media. Your original job was to report the news; the facts. You’re not meant to investigate crimes, or inject your own flare. Tell me what happened, and that’s it. Look, I can’t tell you whether they solved the crime, or not, because like you, that’s not my job. I’m not saying to never question the system, but at some point, you have to resign yourself to the fact that we may never know the truth. And yeah, that sucks for the person imprisoned for something they didn’t do, but I have to believe that such a thing happens very rarely. Our justice branch was designed to lay everything out, so that nothing is missing. If you have all the facts, and all the witness testimonies, and all the parts of something, you should be able to put it all together into a full story. You want my reaction to Viola’s murder? You want to know what I think? I think that it’s a terrible tragedy, and also that it’s none of my business. I didn’t know Viola, I don’t know Maud, and I don’t know what happened. I can only tell you about myself. I was born in Coaltown, but my family moved here when I was three years old, so Blast City is all I’ve ever known. I’m a fair to middling student, with mostly Bs, sometimes a couple Cs, and one A. I love history, and always excel in the topic. I don’t care if we’re talking about the 1880s, or prehistoric times. Hell, I can get down with some dinosaurs, if you talk about them from an historical standpoint, rather than a biological one. Maybe that’s why I’m so cold with people, because they exist right now. I can’t relate to someone if they haven’t lived their whole lives, and died. Wow, I guess I never realized this about myself. Does that make me a bad person? Or rather, does that make me antisocial? Part of being human is connecting with others, so if I care most about strangers from the past, am I even human? I suppose it’s better than only caring about fictional characters. Yes, I saw your list, so I know you’ll be talking to Ira next. He’s a huge nerd, who I believe reads a book a day. Now, that is someone who can’t relate to others. He’ll have lots of thoughts on the murder, and they’ll all be stupid.

Microstory 871: Pearl of Folly

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A few years back, I visited my sister, who was working as an ELL teacher in Ecuador. While there, she suggested I learn how to scuba dive, which she had gotten into when she first arrived. I did extremely well in the class, easily grasping the mathematical components, and safety concepts, so I was confident in my abilities. What I discovered during the swimming pool portion of the course, however, was that I had some kind of breathing issue. At first, I thought I was panicking, because while my allergies have always made breathing through my nose difficult, scuba diving requires mouth-breathing, so it didn’t make sense. I went back home ashamed, and booked an appointment with the doctor right away, only to learn that I also had asthma. There was medicine I could take, and an inhaler, but the doctor couldn’t promise I would ever be able to dive. I wasn’t satisfied with that answer, so I became determined to figure out how to do it, even if that meant finding some workaround. I bought a snorkel, and started training myself in the pool in my apartment complex. It wasn’t quite the same, but it was unrealistic to buy full equipment if this wasn’t going to work out. Summer was coming to a close, though, so I needed to try my hand at the real thing one more time. I bought the best of the best gear, and drove out to the lake. I obviously shouldn’t have gone out there alone, uncertified, but this was something I felt I needed to do on my own. A few seconds underwater, and I was already having just as much trouble as I had before. This wasn’t working. All that time I spent at the pool—and all the money I spent on the gear—had been a complete waste. No, I thought to myself. This can work, but I have to take the training wheels off, and remove the safety net. I decided to just go for it, and head straight for the bottom.

I am freaking out on the way down, but resolute. When my whole family meets in Costa Rica in a few months, I have to prove that I’ve gotten over my issues. I keep kicking my feet until I can see the floor, along with something shiny peeking out from under a rock. Suddenly my breathing problems go away, and I feel as comfortable as I do on land. I keep going until I reach the treasure. It looks like a pearl, but it’s huge. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of one being this large, but I’m no expert. I scoop it up to make sure it’s not just a sparkly rock. As soon as my hand touches the stone—or whatever it is that pearls are—I get a vision. I see a meteoroid strike the surface of the Earth, killing all the dinosaurs in the immediate area. Time passes quickly, and I witness a plant grow from the impact site. It spreads its seed far and wide, until it’s rooted all over the globe. The plants can somehow communicate with one another, which allows them to release some kind of toxic gas that kills nearly all life on the planet. It is the most horrifying thing I’ve seen in my life. The vision ends, and the pearl begins to crumble away, like a small piece of soap in the bathwater. Only then do I realize that the water above is rushing towards me, draining impossibly fast down the little hole I created when I removed the pearl. In only a matter of minutes, I’m crouched on a dry lake bed, still breathing through my regulator. Something green appears through the hole, and grows larger. A plant shoots out so quickly that I fall to my back. I scramble to get my mask off, and find that there are already two plants sitting right next to each other. They each release a seed, each one of which lands a few meters away in either direction. Then all the plants do the same thing over again. And again and again and again. I take off my flippers and run towards the car, but I know that it doesn’t matter. This is how the world ends, and I’m the one who causes it.

Microstory 481: Floor 4 (Part 2)

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Younger Child: Stop moving my toys!

Older Child: The army guy can’t be next to the dinosaurs!

Younger Child: Why not?

Older Child: People never knew dinosaurs. They died a long time ago.

Younger Child: D’uh, he’s a time traveler! And these aren’t dinosaurs, they’re dragons. See, this is their dragon cave.

Older Child: Time travel doesn’t exist either.

Younger Child: I’m just playin’! Give me back my toys!

Older Child: No! You can’t have a person next to a dinosaur. It doesn’t make sense!

Oldest Child: Actually, my mom and dad say that humans did know the dinosaurs. They were all on Noah’s Ark together.

Older Child: Then where are they now?

Oldest Child: They died, like you said, but not as long ago as you think.

Older Child: My mom and dad never said anything about that.

Oldest Child: Not all parents are as smart as mine are.

Older Child: Mine are really smart!

Oldest Child: No they’re not.

Older Child: Yes, they are!

Oldest Child: Your parents are stupid!

Older Child: You’re stupid!

---

Random Parent: Are you going to stop them from from fighting?

Child Care Attendant: Why would I do that?

Random Parent: Well...I mean, why would you not?

Child Care Attendant: They’re not hurting anyone, they’re having an argument.

Random Parent: They should be playing nice.

Child Care Attendant: No, they should be learning how to defend their argument, and understand the perspectives of people around them.

Random Parent: What are you talking about?

Child Care Attendant: Have you ever watched young animals playing on TV? It looks a hell of a lot like fighting, but it isn’t. They’re teaching themselves how to hunt, what their teeth can do, and how to interact with their peers. If adults step in every time children have a disagreement, how will they ever grow? I’m here to protect them, and they’re here to find out what they need to know to be an adult.

Random Parent: If it were my child in the argument, I would stop them.

Child Care Attendant: It’s not.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 18, 2092

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Mateo didn’t know for sure what had happened. The assumption was that, upon transfusing his blood into Leona’s body, she would become like him. It seemed, however, to have had the opposite effect. He was instead transformed into a regular human. For four months, he and Leona lived together on Tribulation Island. They chose to leave the remaining MREs stored away for a time when that was all they had to eat. They subsisted on berries, bass, boar, and bananas. Well, the fish weren’t really bass, but they sure did look like it. Leona explain that the island must be on a different planet altogether—one strikingly similar to Earth in atmosphere, gravity, flora, and fauna—but different nonetheless. This would certainly explain why The Rogue had been able to scatter airplane parts, and commission replicas of the Colosseum and a stargate, without anyone noticing. Surely by the end of the 21st century, satellites and other exploration projects would be able to spot any settled island on Earth, no matter how remote.

Following his first timejump, and his introduction into the world of salmon and other time travelers, Mateo had experienced breaks in his pattern. He had been caught in temporal bubbles, skipped over many hours of a day at a time, and even gone into the past. This, however, was different. They were experiencing the world in real time. The sun came up and went down every 24 hours, birds didn’t get stuck in time, and storms came to torment them. Unless the act itself of stargating to the island caused some sort of temporal shift, it was presently September 18, 2092 on Earth. No version of Boyce showed up to interact with them, and neither did The Cleanser. They just spent their days maintaining Saga and Vearden’s little cottage, hunting, fishing, and relaxing. Mateo did get into running, and could often be found running up and down the steps of the Colosseum.

Leona chose to spend a lot of time exploring the rest of the island under the assumption that Boyce would have hidden treats or traps all around, possibly even something left for tribulations they would never see. She did find a few supply caches, but nothing to write home about, and the last thing she found was weeks ago. Tonight, however, she returned with something she claimed to be quite interesting.

“Oh yeah? What is it?”

“I want you to guess.”

“A box of tissues.”

“What?” she asked. “Why would that be interesting?”

“Because I could have used that last month when I had that cold.”

“No, Mateo, it’s not a box of tissues.”

“A dinosaur.”

“You think there’s a dinosaur in my bag?”

“I saw tiny dinosaurs. After going to 3118, my dad jumped in and took me to the past where Sarka fixed me up. There were tiny dinosaurs running around me.”

“Fair enough, but no.”

“Those were my only two ideas.”

“All right, all right.” She removed something of zero relevance from her bag.

“It’s a mirror.”

“No, it’s not a mirror.”

“It sure looks like a mirror.”

“It’s a time window.”

“You mean like that thing underneath Easter Island that kept showing us the sky from different times and places?”

“Exactly. Smaller, of course.”

“I just see my face.”

“Well, you have to activate it.”

“With what, the magic words?”

“More like magic thoughts. Just concentrate on when or where you want to see.”

Mateo accepted the time mirror and gazed into it. “Mirror, mirror, in my hand, will I ever again eat food that is canned.”

“Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”

“It’s this tiny little hand mirror that can show me the past, or whatever. What are we supposed to do with that?”

“It doesn’t show you the past,” Leona tried to explain. “It shows you the whole universe, and the whole timestream.”

“I still just see my face,” he tilted it a little. “Oh, that’s better. That’s much better.”

“Why, what is it? I can’t see anything. Maybe only the holder can see it.”

“No, it’s just the angle,” Mateo clarified. “Here, look.” He tilted the mirror more so that Leona was looking right at it.

“No, I just see my own face.”

“Exactly. Much better than mine.”

“Oh, shut up. Cute sentiment, poor execution.” She gently nudged the mirror away from her. “Really try to use the mirror as it was intended.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a shot.” He adjusted his stature a bit and shrugged. “Show me the Colosseum right now.” She was right. The glass rippled slightly then refocused to reveal an aerial view of the Colosseum replica. “Interesting.”

“See what I mean?”

“Show me a wide view of the planet we’re on,” he requested the mirror. The view zoomed out quickly, past clouds and out of the atmosphere. It settled on a perfect image of their little marble. It was much greener than stock photos of the Earth. There were oceans, of course, but it seemed to be mostly land. It was beautiful. “Switch to a view of Earth.” It did so. “Show me my parents.” The screen went black.

“What does that mean?”

“Show me my mother,” Mateo amended. The screen blinked slightly, but remained black. He sighed. “Show me Aura Gardner.” It changed to the sight of Aura, Samsonite, and Téa reading independently in their home.

“How are you feeling?” Leona questioned with the soothing voice of a good therapist.

“They look peaceful.”

“I bet I could get the stargate to operate. We could go back to Kansas.”

He took another deep breath and admired his kingdom. “No. This is home.”

“I am inclined to agree.”

He wrapped one arm around her shoulders so that they could both have a good look at the mirror. “Show us the future.” The mirror began to vibrate like a cell phone. The glass began to show a tunnel of light, like some kind of hyperspace or warp speed. Images flickered on and away in such rapid succession that it was hard to tease anything specific from it. He was only able to remember a few of the images. They saw the two of them fishing together. They saw the Cleanser showing his face once more. They saw Mateo hanging off the edge of something. They even saw Darko appearing out of nowhere and shaking their hands. They saw the interior of an advanced spaceship, a young Horace Reaver, some kind of dark object barrelling towards what looked like Earth, an explosion, Leona on an operating table, the faces of many salmon and choosers, the Easter Island Agora filled with people. Blood, a pile of rocks, two birds, a sword shattering in pieces, a star going supernova...

“End program,” Leona ordered. The images disappeared.

Mateo set the mirror down on the floor and walked out of the cottage.

Leona waited a few minutes to come out and see him. “What’s going through your head right now?”

“This isn’t over.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Was that our future? Or just a general future.”

“I don’t know.”

“Leona, what’s going to happen to us on June 8?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“We could prevent this future from happening if we just never went fishing again.”

“I don’t think that would make much difference,” she said, almost coldly.

“We have to do something.”

“Mateo.” She waited a long time to continue, “we know that the future can be changed. All that we saw may not come to pass. But the only thing we understand less than those images is what kind of things we’ll actually see once the future arrives. We don’t know why a sword is shattering, but we also don’t know what happens if we stop it from shattering.”

“So, what are you saying? That it doesn’t matter?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. What we saw changes nothing. We still have to try to make the best choice possible in any given moment.”

“Horace Reaver was there.”

“I know, I saw him.”

“He was younger. Even if he’s alive in this timeline, he couldn’t be that young.”

“With longevity and rejuvenation treatments, he might could be.”

“Is he good or bad?”

“That’s the 64,000 dollar question.”

“It looked like you were having surgery,” Mateo said.

“I must have missed that one.”

“You’re not supposed to be a salmon.”

“What do you mean?”

He turned his head so that she was completely out of his line of sight. “In the other timeline, I donated my kidney to you.”

“I remember.”

“After you had fully recovered from the surgery, you started traveling through time with me.”

She said nothing.

“I now understand that receiving something physically from a time traveler will cause you to absorb their power, if only temporarily. I became more like Meliora when her blood landed in my eyes. You adopted my pattern upon receiving my kidney. And theoretically the same thing will happen again. I lost too much blood from the transfusion, and it is my theory that this is what kept me in the timestream, but it will not last.”

“Yes, I have always believed that we will restart the pattern once the year is up.”

“That’s not my concern, though.” He finally turned to look at her straight on.

“Do I want to know what is?”

“You remember the other timeline, right? I mean, you remember everything. You don’t have any gaps or fragments.”

“Well, I don’t have perfect recall, or anything. Those memories were tacked onto the back, not where they belong according to the standard timeline, but according to my chronology. They feel like they happened thirty-five years ago, and beyond.”

“Try to concentrate on your memory of the original 2020s.”

“Where are you going with this, Mateo?”

“You were suffering from kidney disease, so I gave you my kidney,” he said accusatorily.

“I know, I remember! What are you trying to say!”

He was growing more tense. “Did you contract kidney disease natural, or did the powers that be give them to you so that you would fall onto my pattern...”

“I don’t—” she began to say, but was interrupted.

“Or did you somehow give yourself kidney disease so that I would unwittingly make you like me?”

No answer.

“Leona.”

“How dare you?”

“That’s not an answer.”

She started to back up carefully, like she had encountered a snake.

“Leona, tell me what you did. Explain yourself.

She just continued to back up.

“There’s nowhere to go. Just...just tell me what happened. Tell me the truth. Do I not deserve that?”

She spun around and broke into a run.

Mateo chased after her, knowing that his training would pay off, and that he would easily catch up with her. But this was not what happened. She jumped through the ring of the stargate replica and disappeared through a portal. When he ran through, he just fell off the edge and landed on the sand on the other side. He did not know how to open a portal, so he just stayed on the island alone for the next eight months. He did still have the time mirror, though, and was able to keep an eye on her. She was not doing well, but he had no idea where she was, or how to get to her.

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Microstory 87: The Delegator

No one knows when or where the Delegator was born; not even himself. His first memory was of his first mission. He found himself in the middle of Stonehenge while it was still being built. A few moments later, woman appeared out of nowhere. When she asked where she was, the Delegator’s first thought was that he didn’t know, but he somehow did. He told her that she had traveled through time, and was there to learn what her job was supposed to be. She was hesitant to trust him at first, but this wasn’t the first time she had been thrown through time. It was just that he was the first human she had seen in days. She had previously been surviving alone in the Siderian period in her escape pod after her spaceship exploded. She was in the middle of trying to run from a rauisuchian in the Triassic period when she was sent to Stonehenge. She took the news that she might not ever get back home in stride, which made sense. It would have been inconsiderate to make the Delegator’s first job too difficult. He soon learned that he had the ability to pull the travelers off of their usual pattern in order to meet with them, something that no one else was capable of, and he’s used this power to delegate tasks to hundreds of other people that he calls salmon. He doesn’t know why he does this, but he knows that he must, and that bad things happen when he doesn’t. He chose one time to ignore his duty, and the consequences of these actions have caused trouble throughout all of time.

Mr. Muxley Meets Mediocrity: Part III

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A young boy tugged on the bottom of his father’s shirt. “Daddy, daddy, it’s the Wheedle.”

He was wrong, of course, but Mr. Muxley did indeed look a little bit like the Wheedle. Without knowing the word, he took the comment as a grand compliment, and accepted the title with honor. He smiled at the boy and bowed. His father gave him a fiver.

“What is this?” he asked.

Monty looked at it. “That would be a five dollar bill. You can give that to someone, and they will give you something in return.”

“You mean you have a single set of currency to pay for goods and services?” Mr. Muxley looked confused.

“Well, there are several different kinds of currency. Countries tend to have their own. Much of Europe uses the same one,” Mervin explained. “How do you do it?”

“There is no standard currency,” Mr. Muxley said. “I once paid for a computer with 83 kilograms and 5 miles.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Did I not use kilograms and miles correctly? I looked them up in the land vehicle. I meant that I dragged the vendor’s heavy nephew across town, and in return, he gave me a computer.”

“Oh, well then you used it right.”

There was a screech and a howl behind them. Mr. Muxley went outside to find it. “What is that?”

Monty looked over the railing and watched in horror. “That would be a dinosaur.” A very large and angry dinosaur, possibly a Tyrannosaurus Rex, was barging through the city, knocking over buildings, and stumbling every which way. He acted like he was drunk.

“You just let your pets run around destroying your cities?” Mr. Muxley laughed. “That seems rather irresponsible.”

“He’s not a pet,” Mervin said. “He’s supposed to be extinct. He shouldn’t be here at all.”

Mr. Muxley nodded understandingly. “Ah, I see.” He pulled out a device of some kind. “What time period does he belong to?”

Mervin looked over to Monty who shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, we have no idea. At least tens of millions of years ago.”

Mr. Muxley nodded again, like he was just gathering a few extra and unnecessary facts. “That’s okay. It’ll take a bit longer, but I can scan him and map his origin.”

“You’ll what?”

They watched in amazement as Mr. Muxley pointed his device at the dinosaur. With one more tap, a beam of light shot out of the end and landed on the dinosaur’s chest. He flapped his little arms and tried to knock the light away from him, and roared with delight. What a fun game. After a few moments, the light expanded and overwhelmed him. He disappeared in a flash. “Okay, he’s home.” Mr. Muxley put his device back in his pocket.

The crowd clapped their hands together and cheered. Several tourists came by and patted him on the back. “What the hell are they are doing, making all this noise?”

“It’s an expression of appreciation,” Monty told him.

“You saved the city,” Mervin furthered.

“Oh, only because I was closest,” Mr Muxley scoffed. “Anyone could have done that.”

“Literally no one else on this planet is capable of that.”

“Okay, now I know you’re joking. This planet can’t be that far behind.”

“We are. We can’t travel through time.”

Mr. Muxley looked back and forth between them, waiting for the truth to come out. “Oh, come on.” He continued to wait. “You guys...quit messing with me. How do you go back and fix the past?”

“We don’t ever do that.”

“How do you write history books if you can’t check your facts?”

They shook their heads.

“You don’t go in the future and find out if you’re making the right decisions with your life?”

No.

“So when a tear in the spacetime continuum opens up, you just, what? Ignore it and keep walking? Like a bunch of animals? You’ve never investigated them and tapped into their energy?”

“That’s never happened before.”

Mr. Muxley bit his lower lip. “Let me guess. That thing about not having spaceships wasn’t a joke either.”

Mervin sighed. “Sure wasn’t.”

He seemed to finally be getting the idea. “In that case, I’m sorry it has to come to this.”

Monty looked skeptical and wary. “What does it have to come to?”

“I could try to explain to you the Oliyweth Gridwork; how all life in the universe is connected. I could go on and on about the achievement of enlightenment, and the importance of shedding the meaningless and the nuisances. But it would be a waste of my time. You won’t be around to use this new information anyway.”

“What are you going to do?” Mervin asked.

“I’m afraid that your planet will have to go.”

“You can’t do that!” Mervin cried out.

“It’s for the best. It’s like when you fall asleep in the middle of an eclipse and accidently forget to not grow a third arm. It might take some effort, but you have to cut off that third arm and feed it to the Lilthusned gods. Otherwise, you’ll be dealing with flicker demons for the rest of the month. And nobody wants that. You know what I mean?”

No, we don’t.

“It’ll be quick. One swipe and Earth blinks out of existence. I promise, you won’t feel a thing. Just give me a minute to send an authorization request to the Ateejehid Council.”

Monty pulled an object out of Mr. Muxley’s coat. It was a blowtorch sort of thing that aliens evidently used to light themselves on fire instead of eating, like a normal person. Mr. Muxley saw him do it, but didn’t seem to care one bit. After all, what’s the harm? Monty used the torch to destroy part of the barrier on the viewing platform. He then grabbed Mr. Muxley from behind and pulled him over the edge. Together they began to fall toward the ground. But Mr. Muxley sprouted wings and flew back up to the viewing platform. He watched with disinterest as Monty fell to the pavement and died.

“Did he just try to kill me in order to stop me from destroying your planet?”

“That’s exactly right,” Mervin confirmed. “We don’t want to die. He sacrificed himself for all of us.”

“Oh, you won’t die,” Mr. Muxley clarified. “It’ll be more like you never existed. As I said, this must be done. We cannot attain perfection with cavemen like you. We have to all be at the same level, and it would take far too much effort bringing you apes up to speed.”

Meanwhile, down on the pavement, a tear in the spacetime continuum opened up randomly and drew Monty into it. His body traveled back in time about 5,000 years. Ancient Egyptians recovered it, along with Mr. Muxley’s weird space torch. They reverse engineered the technology and altered history, propelling Earth into becoming the most advanced planet in the entire universe. Monty’s ghost explained to them what had happened in the alternate future. Eventually, Earthling forces traveled to Mr. Muxley’s home planet of Mekajs and destroyed it. Ya know...because it was for the best.